On Valve’s 21st anniversary, and almost ten years after the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, former Valve writer Marc Laidlaw has released a summary of what could have been Half-Life 2: Episode 3, better known as Half-Life 3.

In a blog post called Epistle 3, Laidlaw reveals a rough summary of what he wrote for the game, changing character names to avoid a lawsuit from his former employer.

According to Laidlaw, Episode 3 would have continued where Episode 2 left off, seeing Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance head to the Arctic to track down the mysterious research vessel known as the Borealis.

In the blog post, Laidlaw implies that Valve has kept Half-Life 3 in limbo until about 18 months ago, when they seemingly canceled the title. Coincidentally, this is when Marc Laidlaw left Valve, after being an employee since the first Half-Life.

The post’s original release brought Marc’s website down, leading him to say:

I guess fanfic is popular, even a genderswapped snapshot of a dream I had many years ago.

He also made it clear that his release doesn’t mean Valve has completely abandoned Half-Life 3 and may continue the series on their own. For him, however, he seems to be a bit of closure for a series he spent almost twenty years developing.

Even if Half-Life 3 is never released, it’s nice to finally have some closure about one of the most mysterious, highly anticipated games that could have been.